Stora Enso, Tetra Pak Begins Operations at New Recycling Hub

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Stora Enso announced that it has started operations of the new recycling line for post-consumer beverage cartons, which it jointly set up with Tetra Pak. The state-of-the-art recycling line for post-consumer beverage cartons is at Stora Enso’s Ostroleka, Poland production site.

The project was successfully implemented at a joint investment of approximately EUR 29 million. Nearly EUR 17 million was invested by Stora Enso into the new repulping line to recover carton fibers. Tetra Pak, along with Plastigram invested a total of nearly EUR 12 million towards building the line.

The line would be capable of absorbing not only the beverage cartons sold in Poland, but will also accept cartons from neighbouring countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. It will boost the beverage carton recycling capacity in the country by three times, from 25,000 tonnes to 75,000 tonnes.

The new line will ensure efficient beverage carton material separation by detaching fibers from polymers and aluminum. These fibres are then recycled into carton board materials, which in turn will be used in producing new paper-based packaging materials.

Incidentally, this is one the largest recycling hubs for beverage cartons in the entire Europe region.